Wallpaper and Wallcoverings - Wallpaper Glue

I've removed the wall paper in the kitchen of my house. The paper was on the walls when I moved in. Most of the glue will not come off. It is a non waterbased glue that is yellowish in color and is very brittle. It has no reaction to DIF, hot water or steam. The house was built in the early 50's. Did they use a different type of glue back then? Any ideas?:confused:

Excellent question! I don't know the exact cause, but here are possibilities. If the paste does NOT react in any way to water, then you have just ruled out all normal wallpaper pastes. Specialty wallpaper adhesives such as those designed for applying wallpaper over existing wallpaper in commercial settings (Vinyl Over Vinyl Adhesive) typically feel slightly on the rubbery side. They can get/have a yellowish tint to them. Another idea is that someone pulled a funny on you. By that I mean they mixed wallpaper adhesive and some sort of primer or perhaps just straight primer. I would guess that this would be the best guess as to why your "adhesive" is acting funny. There are proper applications of the adhesive/primer mix, but not for hanging normal wallpaper. Sometimes this could occur as well if the installer doesn't wait the proper drying time for the primer before hanging. So I would just advise that you sand all the yellow stuff up, and then patch and prime, followed by either paint or more paper. This is probably a good example of someone trying to be an amatuer paint/adhesive chemist, and you can attest to the results. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the advise. I figured it was something like this, but I wanted to make sure before I started sanding just in case there was an easier way. I appreciate your post.:)